Games like Surviving Mars
If Surviving Mars is your kind of game, the closest matches are Stellar Settlers: Space Base Builder, Space Haven and Planetbase — picked from the ranked list below. Reviewers single out its chill, contemplative and relaxing. Each pick is ranked by what players of this game also play, shared genres and tags, and review-mined similarity — not a generic popularity list.
Get personalized picks →Surviving Mars is a strategy and simulation game released in 2018 by Haemimont Games and Abstraction, published by Paradox Interactive. Players establish a colony on the Red Planet through colonist-trait management, dome logistics, and careful resource allocation across scenario-based missions. The game supports solo-only play with normal difficulty and massive length, offering terraform planning as players progress. Reviewers highlight that a calm moment can quickly turn into a survival scenario, and players describe the experience as chill and contemplative. Players note each mission feels like a new game with endless possibilities, praising the great pace and just enough challenge to maintain interest alongside many different ways to succeed. The title holds a 79% positive rating from over 10,500 Steam reviews and is not supported on Steam Deck.
About Surviving Mars: There will be challenges to overcome. Execute your strategy and improve your colony’s chances of survival while unlocking the mysteries of this alien world. Are you ready? Mars is waiting for you.
Players who liked Surviving Mars also play
Steam players who put hours into Surviving Mars also tend to own these titles — a signal called collaborative filtering. imho.run cross-references millions of library ownership patterns to surface games whose real audiences overlap, regardless of whether their genre tags match.
Stellar Settlers: Space Base Builder
WHY THIS
Shares a chill mood with Surviving Mars.
Top pick for Surviving Mars fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Strategy and Simulation with Surviving Mars.
Stellar Settlers is a chill space base/city builder and colony sim game. With unique vertical and horizontal base-building gameplay, settle on 10 hostile alien planets and build your own thriving colony. Get enough materials to build a physics-based Spaceship and try to escape from disasters.
Space Haven
WHY THIS
Second-strongest match for Surviving Mars fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Strategy and Simulation with Surviving Mars.
Embark on a space voyage with your ragtag crew of civilians in search of a new home. Build spaceships tile by tile, create optimal gas conditions, manage the needs and moods of their crew, encounter other space-faring groups, and explore the universe in this spaceship colony simulation.
Planetbase
WHY THIS
Shares resource allocation and a contemplative mood with Surviving Mars.
Third-strongest match for Surviving Mars fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Strategy and Simulation with Surviving Mars.
Guide a group of space settlers trying to establish a base on a remote planet. Grow food, collect energy, mine resources, survive disasters and build a self-sufficient colony in a harsh and unforgiving environment.
The Final Earth 2
WHY THIS
Shares a chill mood with Surviving Mars.
Ranked #4 for Surviving Mars fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Strategy and Simulation with Surviving Mars.
The Final Earth 2 is a vertical sci-fi city builder. Earth is unlivable, so you decide to create a space colony. Gather resources, then build and research your way to a better future! Grow your city from an exploration ship to a huge metropolis, full of advanced technology. What will you build?
Oxygen Not Included
WHY THIS
Shares a contemplative mood with Surviving Mars.
Ranked #5 for Surviving Mars fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Simulation with Surviving Mars.
Oxygen Not Included is a space-colony simulation game. Deep inside an alien space rock your industrious crew will need to master science, overcome strange new lifeforms, and harness incredible space tech to survive, and possibly, thrive.
Aven Colony
WHY THIS
Ranked #6 for Surviving Mars fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Strategy and Simulation with Surviving Mars.
Build a new home for humanity in Aven Colony. Discover Aven Prime - an alien planet of deserts, tundras, and wetlands light years from earth. Build your colonies into massive, sprawling cities whilst dealing with the challenges faced when settling on a new world.
Dyson Sphere Program
WHY THIS
Shares a contemplative mood with Surviving Mars.
Ranked #7 for Surviving Mars fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Strategy and Simulation with Surviving Mars.
Build the most efficient intergalactic factory in space simulation strategy game Dyson Sphere Program! Harness the power of stars, collect resources, plan and design production lines and develop your interstellar factory from a small space workshop to a galaxy-wide industrial empire.
Frostpunk
WHY THIS
Ranked #8 for Surviving Mars fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Strategy and Simulation with Surviving Mars.
Frostpunk is the first society survival game. As the ruler of the last city on Earth, it is your duty to manage both its citizens and infrastructure. What decisions will you make to ensure your society's survival? What will you do when pushed to breaking point? Who will you become in the process?
Reviewers mention these as similar to Surviving Mars
Surfaced from review text: when other players write 'if you liked X, try Y', we catch the name and resolve it back to a Steam game.
Stellaris
WHY THIS
Reviewers of Surviving Mars cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Strategy and Simulation with Surviving Mars.
Explore a galaxy full of wonders in this sci-fi grand strategy game from Paradox Development Studios. Interact with diverse alien races, discover strange new worlds with unexpected events and expand the reach of your empire. Each new adventure holds almost limitless possibilities.
SimCity™ 4 Deluxe Edition
WHY THIS
Shares a contemplative mood with Surviving Mars.
Reviewers of Surviving Mars cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Strategy and Simulation with Surviving Mars.
SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition includes the bestselling SimCity 4 and the all-new SimCity 4 Rush Hour Expansion Pack. Create the most massive region of cities ever, with a farming town, bedroom community, high-tech commercial center, and industrial backbone.
Outpost
WHY THIS
Shares a chill mood with Surviving Mars.
Reviewers of Surviving Mars cross-mention this title as a similar play.
this is a tower defence game,we need upgrade our weapons to fight waves of enemies,robots can mining diamonds,and we need spent those in many aspect，features of this game: 1 return back before dager comes,2tempory upgrade are important but permanent upgrade are better
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
WHY THIS
Reviewers of Surviving Mars cross-mention this title as a similar play.
EPIC FANTASY REBORN The next chapter in the highly anticipated Elder Scrolls saga arrives from the makers of the 2006 and 2008 Games of the Year, Bethesda Game Studios. Skyrim reimagines and revolutionizes the open-world fantasy epic, bringing to life a complete virtual world open for you to explore any way you choose.
RimWorld
WHY THIS
Reviewers of Surviving Mars cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Strategy and Simulation with Surviving Mars.
A sci-fi colony sim driven by an intelligent AI storyteller. Generates stories by simulating psychology, ecology, gunplay, melee combat, climate, biomes, diplomacy, interpersonal relationships, art, medicine, trade, and more.
Cities: Skylines
WHY THIS
Shares a relaxing mood with Surviving Mars.
Reviewers of Surviving Mars cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Strategy and Simulation with Surviving Mars.
Cities: Skylines is a modern take on the classic city simulation. The game introduces new game play elements to realize the thrill and hardships of creating and maintaining a real city whilst expanding on some well-established tropes of the city building experience.
Oxygen Not Included
WHY THIS
Shares a contemplative mood with Surviving Mars.
Reviewers of Surviving Mars cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Simulation with Surviving Mars.
Oxygen Not Included is a space-colony simulation game. Deep inside an alien space rock your industrious crew will need to master science, overcome strange new lifeforms, and harness incredible space tech to survive, and possibly, thrive.
Per Aspera
WHY THIS
Shares a chill mood with Surviving Mars.
Reviewers of Surviving Mars cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Strategy and Simulation with Surviving Mars.
Make Mars your own! Take control of the world’s most sophisticated AI (AMI) and terraform the surface of the Red Planet for a city-building experience on a planetary scale. Transform this barren world into a lush paradise and explore the surface for any ancient secrets that may be waiting.
Free alternatives
Free-to-play games that recommended players of this title also tend to enjoy.
Ultimate Custom Night
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it.
Welcome to the ultimate FNAF mashup, featuring 50 selectable characters and custom difficulties!
Magic Archery
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Simulation with Surviving Mars.
Train a commoner to become the greatest archer in this short incremental game! Increase your stats, gather wealth from quests, buy upgrades, and infuse your arrows with magic.
The Lab
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it.
Welcome to The Lab, a compilation of Valve’s room-scale VR experiments set in a pocket universe within Aperture Science. Fix a robot, defend a castle, adopt a mechanical dog, and more. Still not sold? It’s free!
Landfall Archives
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Strategy with Surviving Mars.
Break into the Landfall Archives to steal and play previously unreleased games, demos, interactive slide shows, and even an unreleased version of Totally Accurate Battle Simulator from 2017!
SuchArt: Creative Space
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Simulation with Surviving Mars.
Paint on any surfaces with numerous tools in Creative Space — a free sandbox version of SuchArt: Genius Artist Simulator. Create masterpieces, complete commissions, and decorate your studio in the most advanced artist sim!
The Riftbreaker: Prologue
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Strategy with Surviving Mars.
The Riftbreaker: Prologue allows you to experience the events taking place before the story campaign of the main game. Explore an entirely new world. Gather resources. Build up a base. Defend yourself from thousands of alien creatures.
Jigsaw Puzzle Dreams
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it.
Beautiful Multiplayer Jigsaw Puzzle game where you can design the room you play in!
The Last Sovereign
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Strategy with Surviving Mars.
Explore a world torn between armies of lust and purity in which everything is more complex than it seems, deciding the fate of nations through might, politics, and finance. Every decision matters in an intricate saga that tracks thousands of variables.
Narrow it down
Head-to-head comparisons
More from Haemimont Games
Other recommendable Steam games by Haemimont Games, ranked by review count so the studio's hits land first.
Jagged Alliance 3
WHY THIS
Another title from Haemimont Games, the studio behind Surviving Mars. Shares Strategy with Surviving Mars.
The country of Grand Chien is thrown into chaos when the elected president goes missing and the paramilitary force known as “the Legion” seizes control. Hire mercs, meet interesting characters, and fight in tactically deep turn-based combat in this true successor to a beloved franchise.
Tropico 5
WHY THIS
Shares a contemplative mood with Surviving Mars.
Another title from Haemimont Games, the studio behind Surviving Mars. Shares Strategy and Simulation with Surviving Mars.
Return to the remote island nation of Tropico and expand your Dynasty’s reign from the early colonial period to beyond the 21st Century, facing new challenges including advanced trading mechanics, technology and scientific research, as well as cooperative and competitive MULTIPLAYER.
Stranded: Alien Dawn
WHY THIS
Shares a contemplative mood with Surviving Mars.
Another title from Haemimont Games, the studio behind Surviving Mars. Shares Strategy and Simulation with Surviving Mars.
Brave a new world in Stranded: Alien Dawn, a planet survival sim placing the fate of a small marooned group in your hands. Forge your story through compelling and immersive strategic gameplay as you make vital decisions to protect your survivors.
Tropico 4
WHY THIS
Another title from Haemimont Games, the studio behind Surviving Mars. Shares Strategy and Simulation with Surviving Mars.
The world is changing and Tropico is moving with the times - geographical powers rise and fall and the world market is dominated by new players with new demands and offers - and you, as El Presidente, face a whole new set of challenges.
Victor Vran ARPG
WHY THIS
Another title from Haemimont Games, the studio behind Surviving Mars.
Victor Vran is the isometric action-RPG where your skill is just as essential as your character build and gear. Experience intense combat action: dodge, jump and unleash powerful skills to finish off your enemies!
Surviving Mars: Relaunched
WHY THIS
Shares a relaxing mood with Surviving Mars.
Another title from Haemimont Games, the studio behind Surviving Mars. Shares Strategy and Simulation with Surviving Mars.
The award-winning sci-fi city builder is back - remastered, expanded and even more stunning. Colonize Mars and survive the process, from exploration and infrastructure to welcoming colonists and achieving long-term stability. Are you ready? Mars is waiting.
Omerta - City of Gangsters
WHY THIS
Another title from Haemimont Games, the studio behind Surviving Mars. Shares Strategy and Simulation with Surviving Mars.
Omerta - City of Gangsters is a simulation game with tactical turn-based combat. Taking the role of a fresh-from-the-boat immigrant, with dreams of the big life, the player will work his way up the criminal hierarchy of 1920’s Atlantic City.
Tropico 3
WHY THIS
Another title from Haemimont Games, the studio behind Surviving Mars. Shares Strategy and Simulation with Surviving Mars.
Become the dictator of a remote island during the Cold War. Charm, persuade, intimidate, oppress, or cheat your people to stay in power! Are you a kind and generous leader? A corrupt and ruthless tyrant ruling with an iron fist?
Frequently asked about Surviving Mars
- Does Surviving Mars work on Steam Deck?
- Surviving Mars is currently rated Unsupported on Steam Deck. It may not launch or may have significant issues that block normal play.
- What games are most similar to Surviving Mars?
- Based on Steam play patterns and shared genres/tags, the games most often recommended alongside Surviving Mars are Stellar Settlers: Space Base Builder, Space Haven, Planetbase.
- Who developed Surviving Mars?
- Surviving Mars was developed by Haemimont Games, Abstraction and published by Paradox Interactive.
imho.run ranks Steam game alternatives using a mix of collaborative filtering (ALS / iALS / EASE / LightGCN), content scoring over genres, categories, Steam tags, developers, and publishers, plus AI-extracted vibes mined from review text. The page above is generated in seed mode anchored on Surviving Mars.
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